Transexual Job Applicant Gets Green Light for
Discrimination Suit

December 31, 2007 (PLANSPONSOR.COM) - A federal
judge in the District of Columbia has cleared the way for a
transsexual job applicant to pursue an employment
discrimination suit after not being hired for a federal
job.

U.S. District Judge James Robertson of the U.S.
District Court for the District of Columbia issued the
ruling in a case involving an applicant who applied for a
Congressional Research Service (CRS) job in 2004. The
applicant applied as a man and was offered a position,
but was ultimately rejected when the applicant made clear
an intent to change his name and begin presenting
himself as a woman.

The plaintiff, now known as Diane Schroer, alleged
in her lawsuit that the CRS switched its decision on her
employment application because she did not conform to the
interviewer’s perception of women.

“Title VII is violated when an employer
discriminates against any employee, transsexual or not,
because he or she has failed to act or appear sufficiently
masculine or feminine enough for an
employer,” Robertson
said, in denying a motion to dismiss the complaint.

Schroer’s lawsuit
partly based its claim on a 1989 Supreme Court case
which allowed a discrimination case by a woman who was
perceived by her employer as too “macho.”